Katya Kabanova

So many directors have treated Katya Kabanova as an expressionist psychodrama of late that we easily forget that Janacek's overpowering study of sexual guilt is as much a demand for social change as about the inner workings of the mind. Tim Albery's new production for Opera North in some respects redresses the balance. A thoughtful, angry affair, its brilliance lies in Albery's ability to contextualise the opera without losing sight of its emotional violence or psychological veracity.

Throughout, you are acutely conscious of how Katya and Boris are trapped between the reactionary values upheld by Kabanicha and Dikoy, and the rebellious liberalism of Kudryash and Varvara. Katya's tragedy is that she views her own sexuality as a sin, and images of religious repression are very much to the fore. An icon glowers over the bed she unhappily shares with her husband, Tichon. The mural on the church wall, the sight of which drives her over the edge, depicts a tangle of embracing bodies burning in hellfire. Albery immaculately sustains the oppressive mood, so that the smallest of physical gestures speaks volumes, and the love scenes are shockingly erotic.

Nature, meanwhile, glimmers green and fecund beyond the dark, claustrophobic walls of Hildegard Bechtler's set, though Katya's only possible communion with it is suicide: she walks into the Volga, weighted down with stones like Virginia Woolf. There is, however, a twist. A black-clad bourgeoisie looks on, initially implacable and judgmental. But at the end, they turn away from Kabanicha in revulsion as the atmosphere becomes shrill with protest.

Some may find the evening musically austere, however. Conducted by Richard Farnes, the performance is stronger on neurosis and rage than on lyricism. The jabbing brass and ricocheting percussion aren't always balanced by a corresponding warmth in the strings. Giselle Allen, as Katya, is a great actress, though her occasionally edgy tone is more suited to moments of torment. Peter Wedd, however, is a superlative Boris: sexy, dithering and reduced to horrifying emotional impotence. Sally Burgess's Kabanicha and Stephen Richardson's Dikoy constitute the forces of reaction: Burgess is all smug contempt, while Richardson embodies a powerful drunken brutality. Overall, though, the flaws are minor: the best of it is unforgettable, and you need to see it.